British team chosen

Team selection to represent Britain in the Commodores' Cup has been announced 19/5/06

The RYA Commodores’ Cup Trials have concluded and the team to represent Britain has been confirmed.

According to the RYA, the 2006 Trials saw some impressive racing from all of the boats entered. With the inshore series seeing many of the boats finishing neck and neck out on the water and on the score sheet.

RYA selection committee member Dave Atkinson commented: “It is pleasing to see that the level of competition has gone up in recent years. I am encouraged to see so many British sailors so passionate about representing their country in this prestigious event.”

Due to close results, the Selection Committee decided to review the final positioning of each boat in each race, in a process similar to count-back, to see which boats finished with the most top three places.

Sailing Logic Racing’s Puma Logic team in class two was particularly disappointed with the results, as they were not selected despite coming second overall in the trials after finishing second in the De Guingand Bowl, 140-mile offshore race to Cherbourg.

In place of the Reflex 38 school boat are IMX 40s Mankie and Maverick 2, and the Ker 36 Software Mistress.

Allie Smith from Puma Logic comments: “The team are absolutely devastated after putting so much effort into the offshore race last weekend. Everyone pushed themselves to their physical and mental limits knowing that if they could beat Mankie and Maverick they would come second in the trials, which should be good enough to secure a place in the British team. The team did this in convincing style.”

Iain Macdonald Smith, Chairman of the Selection Committee explains the trial selection process: “As selectors we always had the responsibility to consider the results, but were not bound to choose all or any of the top six boats. After close consideration of the results we decided to select based on performances in all of the races, not on overall point score. We believe we made the best decision after looking at the results in depth.”

He continued: “I realised that all the teams entered were deeply passionate about getting selected, so after finalising the list of teams I personally contacted each boat that participated in the Trials so that they were aware of the outcome before it became public knowledge.”

However, according to Sailing Logic Racing Director and skipper, Philippe Falle they did not receive such a phone call: “I heard the news third hand from other people as to who had been selected for the British team. The RYA would not give us any information. When we did finally get hold of them they had the audacity to say we had not even come second in the trials. Later in the conversation they admitted that we had but that the points were very close.”

Judging from the results it appears the RYA Selection Committee has placed more weight on the inshore series.

The Yacht Racing Academy’s high performance Farr 52s Bear of Britain and Chernikeeff 2 were two yachts that made it into the British team for class one.

Delighted, Kit Hobday – the Founder of the Yacht Racing Academy – said: “It’s great to see two yachts that have both been heavily crewed with graduates from the Yacht Racing Academy in the Great British Team for the Commodores’ Cup.”

Most of the crew are young adults who have only ever sailed dinghies or on smaller yachts.

Iain Macdonald Smith, of the Selection Committee concludes: “Unfortunately we were unable to select all of the boats that took part in the trials but with only nine slots to fill from the RYA Trials we had to choose the boats that we believed would consistently produce the best results at the Rolex Commodores’ Cup 2006.”

The Rolex Commodores’ Cup 2006 will be held in Cowes, Isle of Wight, 25 June-2 July.

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